


An Essay on Revenge - by Erik M. Lehnsherr

by orphan_account



Series: Essays [1]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Erik fucks up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 10:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15435414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Liquefying random pieces of metal do not offer any atonement. Neither does destroying a few walls. And if I forget that for a moment, Peter’s innocent “where’s Mr. Xavier, Papa? Why doesn’t he come to our house any more?” quickly remind me.





	An Essay on Revenge - by Erik M. Lehnsherr

I won’t pretend to know what others would feel in the moment when they finally have their revenge upon someone. The popular wisdom will tell you that revenge is wrong, that it is a sin. It won’t tell you, however, how it is a transfer of ownership. For a second, at the very least, you own someone and put them on their knees and make them regret that they ever even knew you. For a moment there is justice. But the moment may pass, even when you don’t notice - and believe me, it is easy to get lost in the intoxicating web of the power of retribution. And when it passes, if you are still in that mindset, it isn’t pretty. At all.

Emma had tried to warn me. But listening to her had never been an option. And so here I am. Destroyed by the ashes of the fire that I started myself.

It all began when Charles was late for a date with me. That was not unusual, since he had an internship in a cell culture laboratory. Which he hated, by the way. It wasn’t uncommon that lead researcher of the lab would ask Charles to do just one more thing for him. Or two. Or three. But he did not call me to tell he would be late. Nor did he answer my calls. That was odd. I would have communicated with him telepathically, but on that week he was trying on a new brand of suppressants. Telepathy was out of question. I hated that he took suppressants then. I still hate it.

Anyway, I left the restaurant where we would meet and got back to the university campus. I went to the Biosciences department and asked where the fuck Charles was. Not with such words, since I wasn't mad. Yet. A stuttering boy who was Charles’ colleague told me that Charles had left early. By then I was starting to get worried. Charles was on the fucking suppressants and who knew what kind of collateral effect they could cause him. I tried to call him again, but he still didn’t answer.

When I was leaving the campus again, intending to go to the small flat where I lived and see if Charles was there, I saw it.

The image was long burned on my eyes.

Charles and I… we weren’t just a fling, you see. I fucking loved that man. As I had not loved anyone since my mother died. And I thought about proposing him, eventually. There was a point in my life when I couldn’t see myself without him. So, yes, I was disturbed to see Charles practically swallowing a girl’s face.

Sure, now I have another image that haunts me, but that one… that one was hard.

It was out of character of me, but I did not storm and went and punched Charles in the face. No. And sometimes I wonder if there’s a god out there who just… controlled me at that moment. If there is, he or she really wanted to fuck with me. What I did was to simply delete Charles’ existence from my life. After spending a night drying a bottle of whisky. I disappeared from his life, and refused every attempt of contact that Charles made after. As far as I knew, I owed him nothing except a good punch to his face.

You know what I think? Love is not something that you can simply delete. It would be better if you could. No. Love doesn’t end, but it changes. And that’s the problem.

Fast forward to seven years, a failed marriage and a child later, and I met Charles again. Not in a setting that I’d ever expected to. Charles was teaching at the school where I sent my son. He didn’t teach Peter, but the older children. Still, one day I went to pick up Peter and saw Charles. He didn’t see me though. I won’t say that in those seven years I did not think about Charles. Occasionally. I wondered if he was out there making a name for himself in Genetics, if he still worked with cell culture. If he’d died. I never considered that he had decided to teach children. I accessed his profile page on the school’s website, found out that he never indeed got into Genetics. There wasn’t any mention to his telepathy. And yes, I had wondered if he still tried to deny who he was. Fucking yes, apparently.

Charles’ use of suppressants had been a frequent topic of discussions and arguments between us, and seeing that he still took those fucking drugs served me as consolation. It wouldn’t have worked. We were bound to crash and burn anyway.

It was all fine. I wanted no contact with Charles, and always hid myself from him when I went to pick up Peter at the school. Until one day. There was nothing particular about the situation, no addition that made me snap. I only know that I saw him talking to the principal of the school and fuck... Of all the things I’ve dwelled upon during those seven years, one that I always avoided was his fucking face when he smiled. And then that face was there, in front of me, smiling at someone else. It felt as if he were mocking and laughing at me.

It was then that I began to plot. Coincidentally, Peter would make a science project for a fair, and a few more teachers would help his class with that. Of course Charles was included in that group. It seemed providencial. It felt right. I feigned surprise when I first saw him. He seemed incredibly out of his element. He tried to avoid me. But well, he couldn’t flee from his responsibility with my son and the other children. I knew it, and he knew it. I wondered if he truly had his powers blocked, and if he had any idea that I had seen him cheating on me. Why did he think I left? His lack of curiosity made me believe that he knew it. He probably felt ashamed - as he should - and that was why he tried to avoid me.

I told him a story about feeling scared and overreacting seven years prior. “No, Charles, the problem wasn’t on you. It was me.” In four months we were even what you would call friends. But I could tell Charles was still reserved. During those months my hunger for justice grew more and more, and I just wanted to fuck him - figuratively and literally - already. But I forced myself to be patient.

Emma Frost, a friend who had been travelling on Europe since my plans regarding Charles began to take form, came back the the US and met me for a dinner. She is a telepath too, but differently from Charles, loves her power and has no qualms about using it. She plucked everything from my mind. “Oh, Erik. You think you’re so secretive, but I knew that there was something going on as soon as I saw you.” And then she proceeded to alert me that what I was doing would end terribly for me. It would end terribly for Charles, and that was all that mattered. Emma just shrugged then, and looked at me as if she knew everything that would happen, clicked her tongue and sighed.

You know, she’s really a great friend. She tried to tell me what a train wreck I was getting myself into, even though she absolutely loves to watch a disaster.

More three months passed, and Charles and I even got back to our chess games. When we were together, those would usually end with us fucking. One night I remembered Charles of that little fact. He quickly got up and said that he had to go somewhere and left. But I knew that, deep down, he had been thinking about that too. Peter was starting to get attached to Charles, so it was time to act. One thing I certainly did not want was to hurt my son.

In a way, since I began my revenge plan, I always knew that, provided that Charles did not read my mind, he would fall for the trap. It was just a matter of time. He was still on the suppressants, and after some time I even stopped to be annoyed by that. It was actually an advantage.

A few other months and Charles and I were, more or less, where we stopped years ago. We never quite talked about what had happened at that time. I wish I could blame Charles, but… now I see that we both had fault in that. Only Charles hadn’t been doing the same as I was. He wasn’t using me and planning to put a knife on my back. Figuratively speaking. Not talking about the past was the second huge mistake of my life. The first was not confronting Charles when I saw him with the girl.

Because had I confronted Charles, I would have known that it wasn’t him there. I certainly wouldn’t have learned that from his sister. I had been disoriented - both from the drinks and the impact of her fist - when it happened. I didn’t even have enough control over my own powers when Raven stood above me and shouted the whole true story of what had happened… “That’s why these seven - almost eight years happened? That’s why you did that to him now? God! You wanna know, Lehnsherr? It wasn’t him.”

Thinking about what could have been is one of the worst experiences. It makes me feel completely powerless before the mercy of fortune.

For example, when I realized that Charles had bought into my story and was again opening his heart to me, I could have stopped. But no, instead I took that heart, offered to me, and destroyed with my own fist. And then I threw it back him.

I won’t pretend that I knew what he was feeling. Empathy was never my forte, and I recognize, now, that it might have been a problem in my life. What I do know is that I’d give everything to undo it. To fucking put him back together again. Whatever he was feeling at that moment, I wanted to change it.

Liquefying random pieces of metal do not offer any atonement. Neither does destroying a few walls. And if I forget that for a moment, Peter’s innocent “where’s Mr. Xavier, Papa? Why doesn’t he come to our house any more?” quickly remind me.

That’s the thing with revenge: it’s a fire that consumes everything, including you. You shouldn’t play with fire, because you are bound to lose control over it and burn your own fingers. 

**Author's Note:**

> There will probably be more to this story, and Erik's next essay will be on hope.


End file.
